House conservatives prep for fiscal fights

While the August recess has offered little insight into how the House Republican leadership plans to tackle this fall’s fiscal fights, conservatives are plotting their own strategy.

A group of the House’s hard-liners has been in touch while at home about how to tackle the impending fiscal battles — including a continuing resolution to keep the government open past Sept. 30 and raising the nation’s debt limit. The conservatives’ focus is squarely on whether the House leadership listens to their demands.

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“We’ve been in constant communication in the course of the August recess,” South Carolina GOP Rep. Mick Mulvaney said in a phone interview as he walked in to a town hall meeting along with South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy. The pair spent a chunk of the recess together, holding joint constituent meetings in both districts.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has given little indication that he’s going to give conservatives what they want, specifically a continuing resolution that would defund Obamacare. But conservatives think if he doesn’t, it could be a first shot in a renewed battle within the party.

“I’m still trying to get our leadership to actually take on Obamacare when it really counts,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said.

As part of a deal to keep the government running, conservatives want to defund Obamacare, but are also seeking to maintain spending at levels both consistent with the sequester and the House-passed budget. They will only agree to sign off on a debt ceiling hike if it cuts spending, but are unsure whether that should be part of a CR. Taking it a step further, conservatives argue that they aren’t simply seeking symbolic votes in the House, but real measures on which their leadership will stand firm in negotiations with the Senate.

These conservatives point to the January meeting of the House GOP Conference in Williamsburg, Va., where they say peace was struck. Leadership would hold strong on the sequester, uphold the so-called Hastert rule and keep all spending bills under the budget that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would put together. In exchange, conservatives would help pass appropriations bills.

“They’ve lived up to their word so far this year,” Mulvaney said.

But that doesn’t mean that deal would hold if a CR doesn’t include their requirements.

“Just keep their word, that’s all we’re asking, that doesn’t seem like a big ask,” Huelskamp said. “At the minimum, the House has to send out a CR that defunds Obamacare — doesn’t seem like much to ask.”

Because the deal has held, Mulvaney thinks conservatives are in a better place to push back at leadership.

“Because of the successes that we’ve racked up after Williamsburg,” he said, “if we had not had those successes and we had not been able to build that trust.”

There already have been signs of growing strife. The farm bill was defeated earlier this year when the original version included money for food stamps to which conservatives objected. At the time, it was seen as a possible precursor to fights on the CR and debt ceiling, even though ultimately, leadership was able to pass a version that picked up conservative votes.

And the strength of the once-small group is growing that caused so many problems during the fiscal cliff debate at the start of the year, the members say.

“I know for a fact that the conservatives are stronger and closer now than they were after the election,” Mulvaney said. “What I think we’ve done is probably grow our group since the election.”

He added: “There are folks who are reaching out to us on how we should handle the CR.”

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) sees the group of conservatives as having more experience to push back than they did in January.